


i will hold on with all of my might

by Aliza



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Flushed Romance | Matesprits, M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, it's whatever quadrant you want it to be, quadrant ambiguity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-14
Updated: 2012-11-14
Packaged: 2017-11-18 16:02:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aliza/pseuds/Aliza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jade lands their ship on the meteor to prepare for the final battle. When Karkat isn't there to greet them, John goes looking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i will hold on with all of my might

It's not like you're some kind of psychological body-language expert or anything, but the first thing you notice about Karkat-- before all the weird stuff like the gray skin and peeking-out horns, before you notice the way his eyes are yellow like egg yolks and ringed with lashes that, like his hair, look like they're made of black fiber, black glass, before any of that-- you notice the way Karkat sits. You take note of all the lines of him, and it's not the way you remember him from your brief glimpse through Jade.

He looks like a hedgehog curling up on itself. He's all smooshed. He's pressing his face to the bony tips of his knees.

The cheerful “Hi, Karkat!” you were going to toss in his direction dies in your throat because oh no look at him, he's so messed up, why is he so messed up?

He gets up and you start to walk toward him and you stop even thinking about stuff like him being a space alien. He doesn't look like a space alien anyway; he looks like a guy whose eyes can't meet yours and whose hands don't know what to do with themselves. Somebody with watery red tears dribbling from the corners of his eyes and, oh jeez, who's trying to keep his nose from running by sniffing like a snuffly dog and whose shoulders slope down into a miserable arch. Looking at him makes you want to take every good feeling you’ve ever felt and push it into Karkat’s chest, because he needs it so much more than you ever did.

“I'm sorry I didn't, fucking, come and plaster my shame bladder all over the meteor in greeting, Human John Egbert,” he says.

“Gross, dude.”

You take a couple of steps forward and see if he's going anywhere. He's not. 

“I just think maybe it would be a good idea for us all to refrain from crawling under each other's skins and nudging each other's nooks and making real good friendbuddies before some of us get slaughtered, is all. It's like, bringing home a cute and fuzzy beast for your lusus to eat, but instead of handing it over right away you name it and cuddle it for several nights straight so you'll feel as much like a worthless dripping wastesack as possible when you hand it over for mastication.”

Wow. Ok no. “Karkat, what the fuck.” You close the gap. You grab him by the shoulders in your most inspiring leader move and you stare directly down into his face. He is warm, warm like a fever. “No one else is gonna die, ok! Jesus! Stop it! It's just, it's a logistical problem. It's whatever. God, have you been worrying about this literally the entire time we've been traveling?”

“No, shitlord, I also watched movies and slept occasionally.”

You wrap your arms the rest of the way around him and at first he goes completely stiff, almost like a dead thing, but then his breath hitches and suddenly he melts into your shoulder and into your chest and you feel all his weight shift until you’re holding him up.

He shivers. You pet his hair and rub his back and hold him tight. His arms slide up from his sides until he’s pressing his fists into your chest and it’s like all his anger is rushing over you. His anger and his worry. You wonder if he is the opposite type of person from you, where instead of holding every worry at arm's length he absorbs it all, all of it, as if by being anxious enough for everyone he can make everyone else feel fine.

“Hey,” you say. “Hey. It's ok.”

You stand there and wait until Karkat’s hands move and the shaking stops and then his arms sort of weakly drape around your neck.

“Nothing is ever ok, it seems as though the universe orients itself directly around the people I care about and conspires to make them the least ok that they can possibly be. Great! Great incentive to be around Karkat, great reason to bask in the unending charm of his presence--” He's blubbering everything he's saying into your shirt. You pet his hair and lean down to rest your head on the top of his head and you whisper to him.

“Karkat, that is such bullshit and you know it.”

“No.”

You awkwardly maneuver your way down to the floor, so you're sitting with him. In slow, steady pulls, you uncurl his fingers until he's not making fists. Claw by claw, knuckle by knuckle. Then you lace your fingers into his until he abruptly, awkwardly clambers into your lap and oh. Ok.

Oh god he's making this twittering, crackling noise in the back of his throat and you have no idea if it's a satisfaction noise or a crying noise and you are totally inadequate at this.

He looks up at you and you realize you've stopped petting his hair, and oh man, oh jeez, you just, you wish you could kiss him or something but this is _so the wrong time for that._ What is the MATTER with you? Would kissing him even make him feel better? Oh man oh god.

“Shoosh,” he says. “Can you say the thing again, about us all being ok?”

“We are totally all gonna be ok,” you tell him, and even you believe it as you're saying it. “We are gonna be fine. I promise. It is ok to get attached to us, because we are actually immortal gods and not carnival goldfish that die two days after you win them. There is a pretty significant difference between gods and carnival goldfish.”

“Ok. Right.” His mouth twists. “Maybe we could make a different comparison that doesn't involve carnivals, though, just a thing to take note of in the future.”

“Oh, sure.”

Quick, fast as lightning, he kisses you on the cheek. You smell spices and his lips sort of rasp dryly against your skin. And, of all the things that have happened to you, this is about the least weird. The most non-weird thing. You’re not even surprised. It feels kinda right to be kissed on the cheek by Karkat, sort of like the way holding him feels but in a small, condensed dose. So, because you’re an experienced ectobiologist and that’s very scientific, you perform an experiment and kiss him on the side of the mouth before letting him go. He is all cry-faced still and the kiss tastes kind of salty and maybe a little like mucus and it is kind of gross and also pretty great despite these things.

He buries his head in the curve of your shoulder and he smiles a little, finally.

You laugh and squeeze him for a second until he goes “oof” and calls you a nookblister. You really like it when Karkat smiles.

You're gonna be ok, you think.

You're pretty sure you're all gonna be just fine.


End file.
